He didn’t notice Aunt Margaret until he was all the way inside the room. She perched motionless, watching him from a desk in the corner. How could a woman look so striking and so cold at the same time? She wore the same black gown as the day before, a stark contrast to the warm beige and ivory colors of the room.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were in here,” he said.
She stared at him through pale blue eyes, the only color on her chalk-white complexion. It was unnerving.
He gestured toward the wall of books. “Would you mind? It’s still a few hours before my train arrives.”
She gave a single nod of acknowledgment, and he moved closer to the books, scanning the titles, but it was impossible to concentrate. He sensed her gaze on him, watching, judging.
He looked down and sighed. “I lost my wife three years ago,” he said quietly. “I remember how it feels.”
He turned and was surprised to see a rim of tears pooling in Margaret’s eyes. She lifted her head to stop them from falling. He grabbed a footstool and dragged it across the room to sit near her.
“It gets better. I know it doesn’t feel like that now, but it will get better.”
She stared out the window. “No one understands,” she whispered. “They think that because Thomas fell afoul of the law, he was an irredeemable scoundrel, but he wasn’t. I loved him. With every heartbeat, with every breath. I will miss that man every hour for the rest of my life.”
Nick said nothing. He would not utter a syllable against Uncle Thomas, even though he hadn’t been worthy of her admiration.
“I have nothing left to live for,” she said, staring out the window with that oddly serene face. It unnerved him. “When I awoke this morning, I stared at the ceiling and thought that I really wouldn’t mind if I died today.”
“Don’t say that. I expect it’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever smile again, but you will. And then someday you will laugh. And then will come the evening when you prepare for bed and realize that the whole day passed without grief moving in to darken it.”
Her façade momentarily cracked with a flash of anger, but it vanished quickly, and she went back to staring out the window. A clock ticked somewhere, emphasizing the terrible silence. He would go stark raving mad if forced to stay isolated in this vacant house, but perhaps Aunt Margaret didn’t have many options. Even though she tried to redeem herself by pouring money into that immigrant school she funded in Manhattan, no one showed up for her husband’s funeral. She carried his taint and was still a pariah.
Not if he could help it.
“I was appointed to an important position in New York,” he said. “I’ll be giving a fancy speech in Central Park in a few weeks. I would be honored if you came.” He could hear Lucy shrieking in protest, but Lucy was free to continue shunning Aunt Margaret if she wanted. He no longer felt compelled to twist the knife.
Aunt Margaret seemed touched by his invitation but didn’t quite know how to respond. She glanced around the library, as though searching for the words. “That seems remarkably civilized.”
He laughed a little. “No one has ever called me civilized before.” Lucy called him a force of nature, and most of the bureaucrats staffing the water board thought his appointment had been a howling mistake.
“Please,” he coaxed. “Half the city is waiting like vultures for me to fall on my face. It would be nice to have an ally there in case I blow it.”
She averted her eyes and looked like she was about to cry again. “You came to Thomas’s funeral. The least I can do is come to your speech.”
As much as he wanted to flee this desolate place and get back home, it felt wrong to leave her here. When Bridget died, he’d been surrounded by family, friends, and coworkers. During those first few days, he stumbled about in dazed disbelief, unable to believe his young and healthy wife was gone. The fellowship of others had helped, but Aunt Margaret had no one aside from the servants, who seemed intimidated by her.
“Will Ellie be coming home?” he asked. “I know you said she’s in Rome and couldn’t make it for the funeral, but surely she’ll want to make her way back home soon, won’t she?”
Aunt Margaret shook her head. “I don’t want her interrupting her career. She is a brilliant pianist, the toast of the city. Kings and princes come to hear her play. We are . . . I am very proud of her.”
Ellie had always been talented on the piano, but Nick was still surprised she had succeeded with it. First her studies had been interrupted when she was sent away for bad lungs, then she was sent off to some special school that was supposed to help her quit stuttering. Finally, when she was eight, she was sent off somewhere to study piano, and Nick hadn’t seen or heard anything about her since.
“When you next see her, will you give her my regards?”
Aunt Margaret gave him that long, uncomfortable stare again. She was impossible to read. He couldn’t tell if the expression in her eyes was remorse, hate, or anguish. All he knew was that she did not welcome any discussion of her missing daughter.
“Of course,” she finally said.
It was a relief to leave Oakmonte, even though he had no idea if he’d made any progress in mending the family rift. Aunt Margaret’s steely veneer was so unlike Rosalind’s forthright honesty. The tension he’d been feeling for the past few days eased merely at the prospect of seeing Rosalind again. From the hour they met, he’d been bowled over by her quirky intelligence and prim wholesomeness.
The judge’s ninety-day deferment kept them in an uncomfortable limbo, but he was tired of waiting. His next few weeks were dense with work obligations and travel, but whenever possible, he was going to pursue Dr. Rosalind Werner with all the fervor roiling inside him. He wanted a simple, honest woman he could trust down to the marrow of his bones, and with each day, he grew more certain that woman was Rosalind.
Chapter
Nine
Rosalind tromped down the wood-chip path leading to the Boonton Reservoir. It was July, and the leaves of the tamarack trees of the forest around her were a deep, vibrant green, reminiscent of the woodsy mountains of Germany. She loved everything about the outdoors—the wet, peaty scent of the soil, the air alive with birdsong, all beneath the immense, sheltering sky.
But not today. Today she had one final chance to convince Dr. Leal to stop his reckless plan to chlorinate the water in the Boonton Reservoir. The lure of Nick’s promised research funds might do the trick. After his visit to the lab, it was obvious Nick could be recruited as an ally. He’d vowed to dance in the streets if she could prove chlorine was safe. He’d promised her money for research. With Nick’s resources, they could accelerate their research into the safety of chemically treated water. That promise was her best hope to persuade Dr. Leal to delay the release of the chlorine.
The man-made reservoir was twenty-five miles west of Jersey City, surrounded by a fortress-like wall to protect it. Before the water was delivered to Jersey City, it went through a massive filtration system of sand and a layer of aluminum sulfate to strain out debris and algae. The filtration system was barely adequate to clean the water at the best of times, and during stormy weather, it failed.
The small building housing the chlorination system had been built right alongside the reservoir. It looked so ordinary from the outside, and yet inside it housed a revolutionary pump system that might someday change the world. The sharp odor of calcium hypochlorite prickled her nose as she stepped inside.
Both Dr. Leal and Mr. Fuller wore work pants, plain shirts, and had their sleeves rolled up as they connected a pump to the feed lines. One tank held the chloride of lime solution, which would funnel into a larger tank to be diluted with water before being pumped into the reservoir. Mr. Fuller was the engineer overseeing the project, and Dr. Leal had worked alongside him every day.
Both men looked startled as she entered the building. Dr. Leal’s face had a guarded look, but he managed a friendly greeting as she stepped inside. Since the hour he revealed his in
tentions, she had been trying to dissuade him each time they met. She had less than a day to convince him, for the chlorine drip was scheduled to be connected tomorrow morning.
“Dare I hope this is a cordial visit to wish us well on our venture?” Dr. Leal asked.
“You know it’s not.”
Mr. Fuller’s expression turned hard as he went back to hooking up the apparatus, his movements quick and efficient. It reminded her of Nick’s effortless competence as he installed that washroom at the Hester Street Orphanage.
“Nicholas Drake has agreed to fund medical tests on the effects of chlorine on humans,” she said. She didn’t like even speaking Nick’s name in this room, for he would be incensed by what was happening only a few yards from where she stood.
“There have been plenty of tests,” Dr. Leal said gently. “My own father worked on tests for chemical purification before you were even born.”
Rosalind winced and looked away at the mention of Dr. Leal’s father. Just as she specialized in waterborne diseases because of what happened to her parents, so did Dr. Leal, whose father had been a physician during the Civil War. Although never wounded on the field of battle, the elder Dr. Leal contracted amoebic dysentery during the war. He survived the initial illness but suffered from debilitating aftereffects for the next seventeen years before finally succumbing to the disease. It had been a long and agonizing way to die, all from drinking tainted water.
“We need to do a better job of communicating with ordinary people,” she said. “No one reads our scientific reports, and our work certainly didn’t persuade the judge. The judge listened to Nick because he speaks in a way people can understand. We need to take this battle to the newspapers and the churches and public schools.”
“And how many years will that take?” Dr. Leal asked.
She had no answer for him. All she knew was that Nick had been violently angry at the possibility that chlorinated water might be “tested” on his daughter without his permission, and his concern was valid. If she couldn’t stop Dr. Leal, chlorine was about to be tested on the two hundred thousand people who drew their water from this reservoir.
Mr. Fuller turned toward her, hands on his hips and not nearly as patient as Dr. Leal. His eyes were accusatory. “You know we’re right,” he said fiercely. “You know we’re acting in the best interest of the people who will drink this water, and yet you stand to the side and plead for more tests that will take decades to complete. Who is the irresponsible one here, Dr. Werner?”
The accusation stung. There were risks associated with long-term exposure to chlorine, but there were greater risks in doing nothing.
Mr. Fuller had not stopped his tirade. “Last year more than a hundred people in Jersey City came down with typhoid because they drank water from that reservoir,” he said, pointing furiously out the window. “That was an easily preventable outbreak, and what did the judge do? Order another filtration plant! We know it’s impossible to filter bacteria out of the water supply. All it will do is pacify a frightened population. I’m tired of pacifying them. I’d rather protect them by dropping this feed into the reservoir. By the end of the week, every man, woman, and child drinking from that reservoir will be safer than they are today. How many people must die before you will act?”
Trepidation filled her as she eyed the arrangement of tanks, pumps, and tubing. It looked and smelled ominous, but every word Mr. Fuller said was correct. The mixture of chloride of lime would be diluted into microscopic traces once it was dispersed throughout the seven billion gallons of water contained in the reservoir. The chlorine would be undetectable except for the plummeting rates of disease.
“Are you going to keep our secret, Rosalind?” Dr. Leal asked.
Her mouth went dry as she stared at him. This was the moment of truth. Far from the kindly physician she’d always known, Dr. Leal looked like a warrior bracing for battle as he awaited her answer. Mr. Fuller was just as stern, watching her as though she were a bug he would squash if she dared threaten the secrecy of their actions.
She swallowed hard. It wasn’t that she was afraid of them; it was that she didn’t know what to do. This was breaking all the rules. Secrecy was wrong. People had a right to know, didn’t they? Every nerve ending in her body screamed that releasing chlorine into the water supply was unethical and a violation of scientific protocol.
She also knew that every person in the city would be safer the instant their water was purified. Last week she’d read of two more children who’d contracted typhoid. It wouldn’t have happened had the chlorine drip been in place.
“We could use your help,” Dr. Leal said. “We need samples drawn and analyzed throughout the city. It’s going to take a lot of work, and I don’t want to trust outsiders. The closer we can monitor the water at various points throughout the city, the better we’ll be able to adjust the process. Rosalind . . . will you help us?”
She sagged and looked away. Once she was committed to this project, there could be no turning back. This decision would be the culmination of her most cherished dream, or a disaster that could harm thousands and mark her with shame forever.
Either way, Nick would never forgive her.
Her mind wrestled with the decision, but in her heart, she knew what was best.
“I’ve heard enough,” she whispered. “I’m on board.”
Rosalind was unbearably sad as she walked down the tree-lined street toward home. Everything looked precisely as it had when she’d left that morning. The lawns were neatly groomed, and the lane was shaded by sprawling linden trees. A few American flags propped on front porches waved gently in the breeze, and a dog barked in the distance. It all looked so utterly normal. Children played hopscotch in the street, and a woman used a watering can to douse her hydrangeas.
By this time tomorrow, chlorinated water would be reaching into every one of these homes, and no one would know. Her neighbors would go about drinking, cooking, and bathing with that water, never knowing the revolutionary change that had just taken place.
And she would not breathe a word about it. For better or for worse, she was now part of Dr. Leal’s plan and would do everything humanly possible to facilitate it.
A crushing weight descended on her chest, making it hard to breathe as she trudged the last few blocks home. She braced her hand against the bark of a gnarled oak tree to catch her breath, the avalanche of doubt sapping her energy. How had it all come to this?
Laughter floated from behind the hedge bordering her house, and she recognized Ingrid’s voice. Rarely did she hear her sister-in-law laugh, so Rosalind paused to peer through the shrubbery. Ingrid and Gus sat on the front steps of her house. Gus was on the top step with Ingrid sitting in front of him, encircled by his arms. It was a perfect summer’s evening, and the love radiating from her brother’s face was obvious even from this distance. Ingrid smiled and murmured something to Gus, and his laughter was warm and full.
The sight made Rosalind ache even more. No woman who kept the kind of secrets she harbored was worthy of unabashed devotion. This time yesterday, she had been savoring a delightful infatuation with Nick Drake. That was gone now. If Nick ever learned what she had agreed to do, he would despise her forever.
She drew a heavy sigh and rounded the hedge, opened the gate, and walked up the path to her house. Both Gus and Ingrid sobered when they saw her, but Gus rose and summoned a smile.
“Hello, Rosalind, how was your day?”
She managed to return his smile. “Fine. Nothing very interesting.”
The lies had already begun.
Nick embraced his new job as commissioner for the State Water Board like a hawk launching into flight. It was a powerful and exhilarating feeling, marred only by short fits of blinding panic as the immensity of the task became clear. Two other commissioners had already resigned because of their inability to wield the reins. He was determined not to fail.
Most of it was second nature to him. He knew exactly what the men digging the tunn
els needed. He understood the difficulties of laying pipe beneath rivers, through bedrock, and over mountains. The men in the trenches trusted him, and the politicians believed him. Since taking the helm, he had pushed two contracts through, calmed a simmering rebellion at the Avenue D Pump Station, and hired two hundred men for jobs on the reservoir. More progress had been made in the week since he’d been appointed to this position than his predecessor had accomplished in six months. The challenge gave a surge to Nick’s days unlike anything he’d ever known.
Except that he was continually distracted by a petite research scientist whose sparkling blue eyes were perfectly offset by her wire-frame spectacles. He loved those spectacles. He loved her prissy maxims and her eager curiosity and forthright honesty.
As he went about his day, thoughts of her constantly intruded. When he went beneath the city streets to inspect a newly installed pump and emerged covered in muck, he heard her prim voice in his head. No problem can’t be remedied by a little soap and hot water. As he scrubbed up in the washroom, he gave his hands an extra lather of lye soap, wondering if lye was as good as chlorine, and it thrilled him that Rosalind probably knew the answer off the top of her head.
He’d just settled back behind his desk when his secretary intruded. “Your housekeeper telephoned while you were below ground,” Miss Gilligan said. “She wants to know how many people will be coming to dinner tonight.”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “Three adults, plus Sadie,” he said tersely.
Because Rosalind had turned down his invitation to join him for dinner. Again. He’d telephoned her twice since returning from Oakmonte, and both times she turned him down, claiming work in the laboratory prevented her from getting away. He was eager to see her again, but more importantly, he wanted her to meet his daughter. So certain had he been that she could join them on Friday night that he’d invited his sister and her husband for dinner so they could all have a chance to meet each other.
A Daring Venture Page 10
